Orbit
by Clockspider
Summary: Terra and Sunstar go toe-to-toe with a giant robot. Things don't work out very well. Hurt/comfort.


Megaman couldn't handle every evil roboticist in the world, not when he already had Dr. Wily to deal with every year or so. That was where Wily's own creations, the Stardroids, came into play.

After the mess surrounding their creation, attempted world domination, and almost world destruction, the ten fembots decided to attempt to do some good for their home, and so they packed up and moved out of Monsteropolis to a similar big city. The plan was to be do-gooders like Megaman.

They didn't get their first enemy for six months, but when they did, they sprang into action. Uranus explained the situation: a madman had built five giant robots and he had sent them off to destroy power plants in the area, some of them very public or very dangerous. They decided to split into pairs and take on one robot each. Uranus with Neptune, Pluto with Jupiter, Saturn with Mercury, Mars with Venus, and of course, Terra with Sunstar. They would meet up to arrest the roboticist after all his robots were taken out. The five pairs all took off to locate and take down their robots.

When Sunstar and Terra arrived at the location of the first giant robot, both were surprised at how giant it actually was. As tall as cooling towers of the nuclear plant it was marching towards, it looked more like a mecha from an anime than any kind of robot master, though it moved much too stiffly to be piloted by a person.

Sunstar was quiet as she observed the giant robot, shielding her eyes against the bright sunlight with her hand. "If it decides to be violent, we need to take out its legs first," she said, making herself heard over their foe's footfalls. "And _before _it gets to the plant. Terra, distract it and turn its attention on us so we can talk."

"Yes, Lady Sunstar!" Terra leapt into action immediately, brimming with happiness that their space-born leader was giving her such an important job. With a dramatic swish of her long, green hair, she raised her weapon arm and fired a Spark Chaser at the robot's foot, watching it squirm up its metal body and into the first opening it found. With a booming, low screech, the robot came to a halt and slowly turned to face the two Stardroids.

Face to face with the mecha, Terra realized how very small they were compared to it, and began to slowly back off. Sunstar, however, was entirely unfazed, staring up at it coolly. "Listen up," she said, amplifying her voice artificially so the message would reach the mecha's audio receptors. "My friend and I are giving you one chance to peacefully stop this. I highly suggest you do so, and show us where your master is."

There was a tense moment of silence between the three of them. Finally, the mecha replied with an earthshaking, metallic bellow that almost knocked the two small robots off their feet, and began to turn back around to the nuclear plant. Sunstar responded by shooting a fireball into one of its leg-vents. It bellowed again, bending over to clutch wildly at the vent as smoke began to pour out.

"I did try to play nice," Sunstar muttered, rushing in against the mecha as Terra shot a spark chaser up into the other leg's vent. Another bellow and more smoke followed, though this time the mecha didn't bother to try and ease the pain; it went straight on the attack, swinging one massive fist at Sunstar. She leapt aside mid-stride, landing roughly near Terra.

With its first attack a failure, the mecha straightened back up, raising its leg in an attempt to stomp on Sunstar and Terra. Without a word to each other, they began to shoot fire and electricity up at the sole of its foot. They both knew this would be a long and hard battle.

Ever since she was activated by Dr. Wily, as the first and eldest of the Earth-made Stardroids, Terra had felt an inscrutable connection with Sunstar. Unless she was near the mysterious alien robot, she felt an emptiness—and even being nearby did not completely assuage the feeling, since Sunstar was deactivated. Terra knew that if she was to be whole, Sunstar had to be awakened, and so she tried to decipher the alien language that made up her coding while the others made plans for their attack.

But, Terra eventually did solve the mystery, and by that time the constant emptiness from not having Lady Sunstar had severely warped her personality to the point that she was willing to forcibly deactivate her sisters and herself. The consequences of her actions were dire indeed, and almost resulted in the planet Earth's destruction. It was only because of Megaman and Bass that Sunstar was stopped and everything was saved.

Once Sunstar was rebuilt and reprogrammed from the data scattered between the Stardroids connected to her, Terra felt complete at last with her other half awake, intact, and at her side.

When the mecha swung its foot into Sunstar and sent her flying, Terra felt it. She felt her other half shut down, and she screamed from the sudden pain and loneliness it brought to her very core. But she couldn't stop now. They had been hammering the mecha with their combined attacks for close to an hour, and it was unstable and nearly done for.

Terra forced a shutdown of her pain sensors and straightened up, quaking from rage and resuming her endless barrage of spark chasers, sending them into every crease and crack on the giant robot that they could reach, all while dodging the robot's massive fists and feet. She pretended that shutting off her pain helped, but her soul was still screaming in a way that no amount of repair work on her body could stop.

After several moments, the constant electrical barrage finally took its toll on the mecha. A chaser managed to find its circuitboard, and it fell to the ground with one last bellow, causing a minor earthquake. Terra swayed on the spot, exhausted but glad. But her victory lasted only seconds as she ran off to go find Sunstar. Perhaps she only needed a manual restart.

But once she found the crumpled and battered body, Terra knew it would be much harder than that. Sunstar's armor was harder than almost anything on the planet, but it could only take so much abuse. The dent in her helmet was proof enough of that. Terra fell to her knees, gathering the battered robot up in her arms as stormclouds began to roll in. Without even an inkling of hesitation, she beamed to the only place she would trust to repair her center of brilliance, and pounded on the door.

Dr. Light answered shortly, looking at the two damaged robots in shock. "Fix her," Terra pleaded.

It didn't take long for the other Stardroids to get wind of what happened; Roll made sure to contact them while Rock and Dr. Light went right to work on Sunstar. They had finished dealing with their own giant robots already, but still had to go handle their creator; they assured Roll that they could handle him together and would be there to check on Sunstar and Terra and be repaired as well once they were finished.

After relaying the last details to Mars and Venus, Roll went to check on Terra herself. The taller robot had curled up on one of the living room couches in a semi-catatonic state, hugging herself tightly and staring at the corner of the coffee table. Roll moved the armchair over next to her and sat down, just to keep her company. The last time Terra had been like this, Sunstar had been out of commission—there were an intermediate few days between her self-destruction and rebuilding.

"She'll be just fine, you know," Roll said, awkwardly trying to comfort Terra. "Daddy and Rock pretty much built Sunstar from scratch that one time, remember? They'll be able to fix her without a problem." She offered a reassuring smile, and saw a faint return smile from Terra. After some silence, Roll spoke up again. "You know, you can go wait in the lab if you want," she offered. "They won't mind, and you can be closer to Sunstar."

Terra cringed, a pained look crossing her face, and shook her head. "If I see her like that, it'll just hurt worse…" she murmured. "But you're very kind, Roll. I thank you."

It was only an hour later that the remaining Stardroids arrived. Uranus knocked politely on the door and Roll let all eight of them in the house, directing those damaged the worst to the lab so they could get a quick patch-up before any heavy repairs were done. The rest crowded into the living room and took seats. None of them attempted to talk to Terra, knowing the state she was in, but happily conversed among each other and with Roll.

Abruptly, Terra felt an overwhelming sense of calm replace the hole in her soul. Seconds after that, Rock stepped out of the lab. "Terra?" he called out. "You can see Sunstar now, we moved her to recovery and she's awake."

Terra almost knocked over half the furniture in the hallway in her dash to get into the recovery area of the lab. Shielded from the main working area by curtains, there she was, propped up on pillows in a reinforced stretcher-bed. Terra fell to her knees beside the bed, gripping Sunstar's hand in both of her own. "Lady Sunstar, please forgive me for failing to protect you!" she said, hanging her head in shame. "If I could have put myself in your position, I gladly would…"

Sunstar gently put her hand on Terra's head, smoothing back her hair. "Terra, my beloved lamb, you did all that was expected of you," she said. "You did more, in fact… I'm impressed that you managed to take that robot down by yourself after I was shut down. If you'd stopped to care for me instead of kept fighting, that nuclear plant would've been destroyed, and so would we both." Sunstar adjusted herself on the bed, making room for Terra to sit by her; the other robot glanced up and gladly obliged, allowing Sunstar to hold her more closely.

"You are my sun, and I am your planet," Terra said softly, relaxing in Sunstar's embrace. "Without you, I would be lost. Don't let me lose you again, please."

Sunstar smiled at her other half. "As you wish, my beloved blue marble."


End file.
